It is often debated whether videogames are ruining the morals and ethics of youth, however, I have a different dilemma in mind. The question at hand is, “Is it acceptable to buy a game or other form of entertainment if you know that one of the people who created it holds views that you strongly disagree with?”

This is not a hypothetical situation, but rather one based firmly in our modern world for it seems that noted science fiction writer Orson Scott Card, who wrote a column for Compute magazine for many years, has a few things in the works that are of interest to me. He is working on the Advent trilogy of games, the makers of A Tale in the Desert have just just announced a MMORPG based on one of his stories, and he is going to write Ultimate Iron Man for Marvel comics. And he is also an outspoken critic of homosexuality and gay marriage.

I’m not here to debate if he is right or wrong. I can’t change your mind and you can’t change mine. I also think he has every right to say and think whatever he wants. The question is, just because he is involved in something that sounds interesting, should I support him by giving him my money? I don’t think I will, but I’m interested in what others think.

Regarding Ebert, he ends by asking, “Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?” which echoes my own call for all of us to stop caring about “art.” Tons and tons of people have tried to convince him he’s wrong — so many in fact that I don’t even want to bother hunting down links to some of the stories that do it. I’m not interested in arguing with him because I don’t really care if he thinks games are art or not.

However, it is very disconcerting that he seems to think that he can judge games by looking at screenshots. Would he write a review of a film based on the text on the back of the dvd box? That’s pretty ignorant to think that he can judge games in that manner.

Unfortunately, this is just the top of the iceberg because look at the picture at the top of his post. Now I have no idea if he picked that picture or not. I would say that he probably didn’t but he did pick the rest of the pictures in the post so perhaps he did. Regardless, the picture didn’t just appear by itself. Someone chose that picture. What is in that picture? A kid. So someone whether it was Ebert of just some random web guy, wanted to pick a picture of a gamer and they picked a kid — once again perpetuating the stereotype that games are for kids and in this instance also seemingly indicating that games are in and of themselves childish. Wow. That’s pretty sad.

If the most well known person who thinks videogames cause aggression doesn’t think they make you violent then that makes the case that they are so bad that we need laws against selling them much harder to prove.

Personally, I look forward to the SCOTUS shutting down these kinds of laws once and for all.

…well that and Jack Thompson getting involved and saying some crazy things…

Of course there’s two little details that neither of the two stories linked to above or any of the other stories I saw seemed to mention: First, The MPAA rating system “is a voluntary system” and the ratings are not legally enforced. The only possible grounds for a lawsuit that there would be would be under obscenity or pornography laws. Levco almost certainly knows this. So why is he causing a stir? That leads to the second missing detail: Levco is running for re-election.

So this is just a ploy to get into the headlines so that Levco can say he is “fighting for families” and concerned about “family values” without having to do anything. The minute I heard this story I immediately wondered if the guy was up for re-election because that’s the only time public officials try to start legal proceedings related to media. I guess Levco couldn’t find any easy videogame targets.

Heaven forbid that any of the media outlets that aired this story would take two minutes to wonder why Levco was doing this or anything… That’s some good reportering there…

If the game/comic book/other form of entertainment in question has insinuations of his points of view, then I think you’d be justified in avoiding said products. But how many gay-haters (or hetero-haters) work at Blizzard or Sony or Electronic Arts who keep their mouths shut? Would it affect your purchasing decision if you were aware of an offender there? Would you support Card if he was pro-gay/pro-gay marriage even if you didn’t care for his work?

If his games or work fall into a category that you enjoy, then enjoy them but don’t hesitate to drop them if you feel they are becoming “preachy”.

I agree with you, Bryan. Once I find out information about someone like you found out about Card, I can’t support them. Even if the work doesn’t include his homophobia, by giving him money you’re still giving him an implicit “ok,” and that makes me feel ooky.
Tony brings up an interesting point when he asks if you’d buy someone’s work just because you agree with them politically, even if their work wasn’t good. I don’t think I would. I wouldn’t vote for a woman just because she’s a woman, so I wouldn’t buy a comic just because the writer was pro-gay or pro-woman if the comic sucked. If you did, you’d be supporting something you dont’ like — inferior work. In both cases, you’re refusing to support something you don’t like.

I find that gaming and political/social issues easily fit into different niches in my life. As long as the work ITSELF had no explicit agenda and I was interested in it, I would buy it. I really don’t care what viewpoints Orson supports in his off hours, so long as it doesn’t bleed into the game itself.